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Regional surveillance of disjoint rectangles: a travelling salesman formulation

  • Theoretical Paper
  • Published:
Journal of the Operational Research Society

Abstract

Mission planning for surveillance coverage is of both practical and theoretical interest. In brief, regional surveillance involves planning the search of certain given regions in the minimum possible time. The surveillance problem can therefore be described as a variant of the classical travelling salesman problem. The uniqueness of the problem lies in the different allowed entry and exit points. Additionally, the mission schedule has to ensure the probability of target detection must not be compromised. From the practical perspective, any reduction in travelling time provides immediate cost savings to the defence department. A dynamic programming formulation is derived for the regional surveillance problem. An example is included to illustrate the methodology.

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Acknowledgements

The first author wishes to thank LCol. Bigelow, MARPAC for introducing him to this problem. The analysis presented in this paper is solely the opinions of the authors and does not represent the official views of the Department of National Defence.© Crown Copyright–Canadian Government

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Defence R&D Canada, CORA, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    K Y K Ng

  2. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    K Y K Ng

  3. McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    N G F Sancho

Authors
  1. K Y K Ng
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  2. N G F Sancho
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Correspondence to K Y K Ng.

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Ng, K., Sancho, N. Regional surveillance of disjoint rectangles: a travelling salesman formulation. J Oper Res Soc 60, 215–220 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602507

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602507

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